First Ride with the CB500X

How does time pass so quickly?!?  I've been meaning to update you on the new Honda in the stable. 

Yes, I did come home to find the lovely tan Honda CB500XA in the stable.  As I hadn't test sat on it, I was afraid the fit wouldn't be right.  I'm not one to purchase things sight unseen.  I also don't care to purchase bikes unridden, but very few new bikes are serviced and available for test riding.  That seems to only be the domain of Harley Davidson and BMW.  We had read many reviews that said this bike was very comfortable for tall riders in the 6 foot range.  So I was optimistic.

Oilburner had a difficult time finding the bike.  Dealers in the area said they were in stock, but not "in stock" to look at.  They could get them from the warehouse with a deposit.  He called around and located a dealer that said they had one.  When he arrived, the salesman he talked to was not available, and the one he was working with said the bike wasn't there.  Confusion abounds.  After some searching it was uncovered that the parts department had taken the bike and was using it as their display!  As you have seen from previous pics they had a mannequin with riding clothes, gloves, helmet, boots completed decked out.  So...that is how I got the bike.  Many people had been looking for it and inquiring about it, but the salesmen didn't know where it was.  (Even the owner of that pretty GS700 from a few posts ago and called about that bike before buying the GS.)

Then comes the haggling.  Now I am hearing this all second hand and am amazed at the dickering that Oilburner did.  The price tag on the bike was NOT what the advertised price was on Cycle Trader.  The salesman tried to get around it by saying it wasn't the same bike, until they checked VINs.  No disputing it.  Oilburner had them knocking $1700 off the bike in one fell swoop.  The Cycle Trader ad also mentioned a $100 gear credit.  Again, they hemmed and hawed, but gave in and gave it to him.  Wow.  Just wow. 

The story just gets so exciting!  Makes her look that much more attractive.

All this time I'm asking Oilburner if he intends to purchase one, or if he will be content with his XR650L.  He assured me that his 650 was great, he wasn't interested and it was paid for.  Yeah, those assurances didn't last long.  He rode mine 1 mile to unload it and get into in the stable and he was smitten.  Or course, I didn't know that at the time.  As we are talking about it more on Friday, I'm commenting that it is for the best that he keeps his XR650L as there would be no way that the dealership would possibly honor the same price for a second one.

I was wrong.  Apparently, he had already ordered one that had to be brought in from Alabama.  And they gave him the same price.  The only difference was that his didn't have ABS and mine did.  Hmmm...

Meet Oilburners bike...

We needed to break the new bikes in.  Mine had 1 mile on the clock.  His had 2.  :)  What better way to break a bike in then ride it like you stole it in the twisties.  That's how I broke the last GS in, and it hasn't leaked one drop of oil.

We grabbed Alex and went into the mountains.  Had lunch at TWoS and hit the curves hard.  Hwy 60, Hwy 180, Richard B Russell.  The boys were into the curves, so the only way I was getting pics of the bikes was to stop without them. They eventually found me.

Head on over to Flickr to see more glamour shots.  As I said, not many due to the fast paced ride.

Impression: Feels very light, even though only 100 lbs lighter than the 1200GS.  Very "flickable".  Shorter wheel-base made the twisties fun, after learning when to turn.  Never having ridden an inline engine she was very smooth to shift.  Learning to care for a chain driven bike with be fun what with lubing and adjusting on a regular basis. Love getting 54+ miles per gallon. 

Funny story: As I was not even in the state when Oilburner purchased my bike, obviously the bike is in his name.  I thought it only justified that his bike be in my name. HA!

And yes...the XR650L went up on the selling block.  More on that next time.

Teaser Post

OK.  I'm still making my attempt at a first pass over the photos.  Slow going...  And the video looks like it will suck due to condensation inside the GoPro housing.  Oilburner and I haven't been having much luck with GoPro's lately.

I am posting this short little video of the driveway of the Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at.  This driveway was DAUNTING!  You can't tell in this direction, but the other side is a very steep drop off, with single lane twists, turns and roller coasters.

Time Stamp 41s...that is the roof of a three story house on the left...

But you just have to listen at time stamp 56s.



Can you guess what it is??

Riding by Waterfalls

We made plans to ride with a friend we hadn't ridden with for awhile.  We made the plans for Saturday.  And we went to bed way too late after my getting home late on Friday from Birmingham.  This made for one extremely grouchy BeemerGirl Saturday morning.

With the heat and humidity we all agreed it would be nicer to head out early and decided on an 8AM meeting point about 30 minutes from my house.  Eight?  Back up the clock here:

• 30 min to get there
• 20 min prior to lock the house, water the dog, gear up
• 30 min prior for showers and dressing and dashing around the house to gather clothing and gear
• 15 min prior to make sure the dog is up, fed and pilled in time for her morning constitution to take place so we don't have presents on the carpet

If I have to be there by 8, I have to get up at when??  6 AM??  I went to bed when??  1 AM??  This was gonna be difficult.

I woke up sore and a little stiff, but the warm shower worked that out.  The really good news was that the tush didn't quell at the sight of the saddle.  And for once I didn't need fuel immediately, so that meant I wasn't suiting up with that fine layer of sweat as lubrication to ride a mile down the road to half undress to fill the fuel tank.  Then fighting with gloves to convince them they needed to cover all of my hand, not just fingers and fleshy part where you are stuck because I am so sticky!!

No.  I was able to suit up with the requisite sweat and hit the road to try and cool off.  We reached the meet location and filled up there and we were soon underway, heading to points Northeast.  For speed and time we took the highway up and veered off to start the waterfall trail on some baby twisties.

I was doing good until the point we turned off the main road.  Mr. Oilburner asked if we needed a break and since I never really answered he took it as a sign to go forward.  But what actually happened was another 10 minutes down the road my legs started to feel cramped and were screaming at me to stretch them.  But it was too late.  We had hit the beginning of the twisties on these tiny little roads and Mr. Oilburner and Alex were off at a gallop.  Being a little befuddled and completely out of sorts I was approaching everything slower.  I was expecting some tiny farm animal or another to come bounding out of some yard or field at me.  And the turns?  Kudzu was covering the white lines of this tiny, barely two lane road.  Every turn showed me that I was working my way through this area at a turtle's pace compared to the two hares in front of me.  (I will use hare's because it isn't polite to say what I would really like to call them.)

So here I am, finally on Warwoman Rd.  And absolutely no opportunity to stop and document me...on Warwoman Rd!!  And the two knuckle heads are racing farther away by the second.  Then I realize I am on these wonderful roads in a gorgeous valley with great lighting.  Something Scooter in the Sticks would completely take advantage of.  Now I am losing ground AND missing out on this great opportunity to take pictures of my motorbike!!  Grouchy doesn't even begin to convey the mood that I am in.

Almost completely through the best part of the valley I decided to pull over and finally switch the GoPro on.  But it is really too late.  I still started the camera and continued on, but the scenery and lighting wasn't nearly as nice.

Grouchy feelings and ignoring querying over the scala Mr. Oilburner rightfully deduced that I was completely out of sorts.  Which kinda spoiled the road and scenery for a ways.  And it added nothing to the mood that the waterfalls were proving difficult to find. One just could not be found.  And the other one was only spotted by me, after passing.  To be fair, it was difficult to see and regularly had to be trimmed back for viewing.  But having to park in someones driveway was annoying.  Especially when they wanted out!

 You can only see this thanks to the trimming.

Avert thine eye's grandmother.  Here I am in one of my cranky moments. Mother, you can look since you taught me this when I was 4 y/o.  :)

Giving my best FYYFF pose and showing my feelings.

I know that I was a royal pain in the ass and appreciate that Mr. Oilburner and Alex put up with my bad temper admirably.  After a few minutes of walking around and seeing the fabulous waterfall I was a mite better and we continued on.  Only a couple miles down the road is the wonderful artsy town of Highlands, NC.  One of those places that tries to showcase local stuff with this wild flare and charge outrageous prices.  This did result in another dismount only minutes after sweating back into our clothes, but Mr. Oilburner promised me ice cream.

Once I was happily working my way into a scoop of coconut ice cream (YUM!) we started trolling the shops along main street.  We did all the window shopping we desired, with some strange looks from the proprietors.  See, this is supposed to be a nice, rich, vacation area and they expect people to dress appropriately.  We are these clean cut people walking along the street in riding pants and boots and helmet hair.  Oh well.  They'll get over it.  There wasn't too much we were interested in, or could afford, anyway.  Alex and I were enamored by the balancing metal yard art, but felt the 4 foot, metal pole wouldn't do well to transport by motorbike.

Now that I am stuffed with ice cream and mad at myself for giving in and eating it in the first place, we head back to the bikes to continue on.  With parking at a premium in this town motorbikes will tend to congregate together and we found this parked next to me...

Search and Rescue Harley Davidson.  No, I will not comment on what they might have been "searching" for...being that it was a Harley.

Just down the road is our second waterfall.  Well known in these parts, Bridal Veil Falls, actually spills over the roadway, giving vehicles access to drive behind the falls.  Of course, this makes for much lolly-gagging and gawking.  In my mind I had always pictured the fall on a side street or turn off from the main road.  In reality, it is right on the road with just a little lay of pavement to make the detour behind it.

  Lots of cars/people and I didn't want to mess with it.  This is the best shot we could get.  Mr. Oilburner didn't want a picture.

We hopped back into the groove and made our way to the next fall, Dry Falls.  No, they weren't dry.  But we didn't go see it owing to the new large decking and steps.  We assumed it was going to be a bit of a walk/hike.  We were not up for that in our riding clothes and the day was turning out to be warm.  Heading towards home later in the day I discovered that there was a jut to the walking platform that probably gave a good view of the falls that was within steps of where we had parked.  Just goes to show you how annoyingly impatient and stupid we can be.

On the road again...  This time to our final lookout of Cullasaja Falls.

Cullasaja Falls

One of the best parts of these falls/this area is the road.  Tiny, narrow, shear rock walls on your side, baby twisties out the wazoo, long views into tree-covered valleys.

Beautiful valley dead ahead.

Sheer rock cliffs hugging the road, and narrow lanes.

Just to give you a little scale of these rocks.

We did pass the falls parking area.  Not a problem considering the size of the parking area and the blind curve just ahead.  It was only a mile or so down the road and we were able to turn around.  Check out this deteriorating parking pad that will accomodate about 2.5 cars.

Parking pad for the falls.

My baby.

Unless you wanted to be a billy goat for a few hours and attempt the [illegal] path down to the falls there wasn't much to do here.  We sat around on the rails, stretched our legs, posed for the camera and just chatted and laughed.  People came and went and we waved to the myriad of bikes and bikers on the road passing us by.  Time to suit up, though, and a family with young children had just stopped.  The boys were about 5 and 7 and more enamored with the bikes then the falls.  One just wanted to be part of the scene and wished us a "good ride" as he hopped back to their car.  Cool kid.

The jagged heart and shininess caught my eye.

I later comprehended the leaf being strangled in the background.

We suited up and determined it was hot and time to point the bikes towards home.  But there were many good roads between here and home; including the border hwy between North Carolina and Georgia of 246/106.  This isn't one that you can easily speed on since there is slower traffic.  But hairpin turns and 10% downhill grades can make for some fun.  I was actually able to capture a little of this on video.  

The roads were wonderful all the way home.  We took most of the ones less traveled and were regaled with some interesting sites of summertime redneck activities.

The one bridge that did not post signs of "No Jumping or Fishing from Bridge." 

So what do people do?  Jump from the bridge, of course.

There are a few more pictures that can be viewed on flickr.

Stats:

279 miles

1 extremely grouchy BeemerGirl early in the day that didn't take many pictures

many baby twisties to play in, only one car on my side, this trip

Twisties in the Rain

The morning wake up ritual continues: groggy, coffee, "When we going riding??"

Mr. Oilburner and I managed a slightly earlier kickstands up time today.  But Brother was doing exceptionally well given his time zone change.  I think Brother would have been happier to get moving earlier, but Mr. Oilburner and I still have the classic problem of slow feet sometimes.

This day was threatening rain.  We took it with a grain of salt and headed towards the mountains.  Brother wanted twisties!!  He insisted that he could handle it.  Mr. Oilburner and I would look at each other with that knowing look.  He might think he knows twisties...but he hasn't seen anything with our roads out here.  Fine.  Brother wants twisties, we were gonna give him twisties.

We headed towards Suches and planned to take Hwy 180 over to Helen.  One of the twistier roads in the area.  We were hoping to have lunch at Two Wheels Only (TWO).  That would give Brother a break between Hwy 60 from Dahlonega, before hitting 180.

Hwy 60 north of Dahlonega is a fun little road that has to be shared by motorcycles, bicycles and sports cars during the summer.  We had it to ourselves on a rainy Monday!  Allowing us to go whatever speed we were interested in.  Brother was confident enough to go the speed he was most comfortable with.  So saying, he was obeying the speed limit instead of attempting to keep up with Mr. Oilburner.  Like yesterday, he looked extremely comfortable.

We stopped at the top of the pass to show Brother the Appalachian Trail.  Tis the season and many hikers were milling about.  It was so eventful that we didn't even dismount the bikes.  Just a quick discussion and we headed on our way.  TWO was only a couple miles down the road.  As my luck would have it, TWO was closed.  We stopped to take a few pictures and gawk at some of the demolition scenarios they had on display.

We weren't terribly hungry and didn't have any issues with continuing on our route.  Our luck held and the rain started just as we turned onto Hwy 180.  Hey, I never said it was good luck.  Figuring that it wasn't going to let up we let Brother suit up in the Frog Togs.  Mr. Oilburner and I were wearing our waterproof gear already.  I enjoyed watching Brother taste real twisties with winter gravel still sitting in some curves and the rain coming down pretty hard.  And since Mr. Oilburner and I are connected I was able to give updates on Brothers learning progression.  I couldn't fault his caution on those hairpin turns.  180 is a stupendously fun and curvy road if you know it.  Encountering it for the first time in the rain is daunting and he did well.

 Hwy 76 was a different story.  The rain was still obscuring visibility and coming down hard enough to sheet across the road.  Brother's speed slowed down to 20 mph.  Which isn't completely unreasonable considering that is the posted/recommended speed limit around some of those turns.  I chuckled down through the wireless.  It took Mr. Oilburner asking me if he was leaning into the corners for me to notice that Brother was starting to manhandle the bike a little more and that bike was barely leaning around any of those curves.  :-)

I was anticipating the hairpin turn marking the last of the tight curves to see how Brother would handle it.  I wasn't anticipating how I would handle the sheer embankment encroaching the edge of the pavement.  It was a little disconcerting executing my perfect lean, trying not to wobble as I realize I am looking directly down the washout.  Hiccup...  Wish I could have gotten a picture of that, but I wasn't about to take my hands off the wheel.

Yeah!  Our luck held out a little longer and the rain stopped just as we came out of the mountains.  Of course...  We stopped at the first place we spotted for lunch and shrugged out of the gear.  My jacket weighed about 10 pounds more then it did when I first put it on.  And my shorts were wet and sticky all the way up to my derriere.  Damn waterproof gear ain't so waterproof.

Helen, GA is also known as Alpine Helen and revels in all things Germanic.  It is a little on the tasteless/tacky side and a huge tourist trap, to me.  But visiting in the off-season provides plenty of parking spaces, easy access to eateries and actually walking space on the sidewalks.  So we laughed about our luck and antics over delicious bratwurst and sauerkraut.  We tripped through a few stores looking for souvenirs for Brothers family.  I lucked across a place selling Haribo Raspberries.  Brother bought homemade fudge and divinity and I buy packaged candies.  :-)  We let Brother sightsee, being his first time.  He takes all the pictures, I merely tag along.  Nothing exciting.

By the time we gathered our gear and ourselves the clouds were clearing away, letting the sun shine through. 

See?

My luck...  :-)


Stats:
180 miles
Brother's first treat of GA twisties...and he even had to do it in the rain
Rain in all the twisties, clear skies coming home on the highway...
Maybe even our first time actually eating German food in Helen, not just funnel cake.  ;-)